for certain tell.[116]

Sceaf or Scyld is identical with Yngve, the patriarch of the Ynglings;
with Frey, the harvest and boar god, son of Njord,[117] the sea god;
and with Hermod, referred to as follows in the Eddic "Lay of Hyndla":

To some grants he wealth, to his children war fame,
Word skill to many and wisdom to men,
Fair winds to sea-farers, song craft to skalds,
And might of manhood to many a warrior.

Tammuz is similarly "the heroic lord of the land", the "wise one", the
"lord of knowledge", and "the sovereign, lord of invocation".

Heimdal, watchman of the Teutonic gods, also dwelt for a time among
men as "Rig", and had human offspring, his son Thrall being the
ancestor of the Thralls, his son Churl of churls, and Jarl of
noblemen.

Tammuz, like Heimdal, is also a guardian. He watches the flocks and
herds, whom he apparently guards against the Gallu demons as Heimdal
guards the world and the heavens against attacks by giants and
monsters. The flocks of Tammuz, Professor Pinches suggests, "recall
the flocks of the Greek sun god Helios. These were the clouds
illuminated by the sun, which were likened to sheep--indeed, one of
the early Sumerian expressions for 'fleece' was 'sheep of the sky'.
The name of Tammuz in Sumerian is Dumu-zi, or in its rare fullest
form, Dumuzida, meaning 'true or faithful son'. There is probably some
legend attached to this which is at present unknown."[118]

So the Sumerian hymn-chanters lamented:

Like an herdsman the sentinel place of sheep and cattle he
(Tammuz) has forsaken...
From his home, from his inhabited domain, the son, he of wisdom,
pre-eminent steer of heaven,
The hero unto the nether herding place has taken his way.[119]

Agni, the Aryo-Indian god, who, as the sky sentinel, has points of
resemblance to Heimdal, also links with Tammuz, especially in his
Mitra character:

Agni has been established among the tribes of men, the son of the
waters, Mitra acting in the right way. _Rigveda_, iii, 5, 3.

Agni, who has been looked and longed for in Heaven, who has been
looked for on earth--he who has been looked for has entered all herbs.
_Rigveda_, i, 98.[120]

Tammuz, like the Egyptian lunar and solar god Khonsu, is "the healer",
and Agni "drives away all disease". Tammuz is the god "of sonorous
voice"; Agni "roars like a bull"; and Heimdal blows a horn when the
giants and demons threaten to attack the citadel of the gods. As the